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One of my favorite things about cooking is the seasonality of ingredients.  Who doesn’t love asparagus in the spring, fresh tomatoes in the summer or, my personal favorite, apples in the fall?  Maybe, I am biased though - I mean I did grow up in New England.  Apple picking in the fall is tradition.  Of course, when you have 5 crates of apples you get pretty creative in how you use them.  We put them in everything - apple crisp, apple fritters, apple pancakes, apple pie, apple cake, etc.  Apples have a really long shelf-life, but there is nothing like a fresh from the tree Mac.  When August rolls around I have all I can do to wait for early season apples. 

So here’s some interesting factoids about my favorite fall fruit.

• One medium apple has approximately 80 calories.
• Apples are part of the pome family.  Another member of the pome family is the rose.
• Trees take 4 to 5 years to fruit.
• Most apples are still picked by hand.
• China is the leading producer of apples.
• One final fact from my own personal experience - it’s very difficult to find a Mac (not the computer) in Oregon.

 One of the most interesting things I have learned in the kitchen is about leavening agents.  I know most people probably don’t give much thought to leavening agents.  I know some of the basics of baking are scary to some people.  Yeast freaks a lot of people out.(It is a little touchy, but once you start working with it, you realize it really isn’t that complex.)  The truth is leavening agents are magical to some degree, helping baked goods to be light and airy.  I was blown away when I first found out the leaveners do not actually create new air bubbles in doughs, just help to expand the existing ones.  One of the best books I own has some great information on this process - Cookwise by Shirley Corriher.  There is a great story in the book about her first finding this out and realizing why her cakes never came out very good.  Anyone who bakes consistently realizes the importance of incorporating air into the butter mixture (with 7 - 8 minutes of whipping, often times) for cakes.  Shirley realized after doing some research for another article she was writing that she never did this step and that was why her cakes were not that great!  I love stories like that, see you can always learn something in the kitchen.

Yeast is interesting and very important to baking.  Yeast is a one-celled organism that feeds simple sugar (that’s why you always use honey or sugar to activate yeast).  As the dough rest, the yeast eats the sugar around it and in the process gives off gas and grows.  The yeast continues to grow dividing to reproduce.  Water temperature is important when working with yeast.  Water above 140° or so will kill yeast.  Cold water only affects the yeast in the initial activation phase.  The yeast will not activate in water that is too cold.

So what about chemical leaveners?  Baking powder and baking soda also produce gases that help to leaven cakes and baked goods.  When heated these chemicals break down and give off gas.  Adding an acid to baking soda helps it to give of gas faster and gets rid of the unpleasant taste.  Baking powder works much the same way, as it contains baking soda.  It also contains an acid in just the right amount to use up the baking soda.  There is also some cornstarch used to keep the baking soda and acid dry and separated. 

 Hot peppers are found in a ton a varieties, shapes and sizes these days.  Probably the most readily available and widely used variety is the jalapeno (shown above).  We all know a little about hot peppers, but here are a few things you may not have known.  The active ingredient in hot peppers is capsaicin, a chemical repellent found in all hot peppers.  The capsaicin is found in mostly in the seed and ribs of the pepper.  One of the quickest ways to lower the level of heat in any dish with ***chillis is to remove the membrane and seeds.  Chillis are actually hollow fruits (this from Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking).  The amount of a capsaicin is actually not only effected by the type of chilli, but on the conditions in which it is grown and on how ripe the chilli is. 

Four things affect the strength of the capsaicin in your dish.  The first is, of course, the type of chilli you purchase.  (The best way to tell how hot your chilli is in comparison with others is to look at the Scoville index)  The second and third factors also seem quite obvious, the amount of chilli you add and whether or not your peppers had the seeds and membranes intact.  The four factor is the amount of time the chilli is in contact with the other ingredients. 

Okay, so you know how to control the heat level, but what do you do if your mouth is on fire from eating a chilli.  Harold McGee suggests getting an something ice-cold into your mouth or eating some crackers or a spoonful of sugar.  “Cold liquid or ice cools the receptors down below the temperature at which they are activated, and the rough food distracts the nerves with a different kind of signal.” (On Food and Cooking, page 420)

So, that’s a little information on chillis.  Hope this helps you the next time you are faced with a really hot chilli.

***I am using the spelling that many food science writers use for chillis.(I know the extra l looks a little funny )

Okay, so you all know I am not the biggest coffee drinker in the world.  I do enjoy coffee quite a bit, but I drink it more like a social drink and not as regularly as many people do.  I have seen a bunch of information on how to store coffee, some of it is contradictory, so I went on a mission to find the best information I could on coffee storage.  If you are like me and don’t use your coffee as regularly as other people do, then you may want to read the rest of this article.

I went to my favorite source on food science, Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking, and found out what I could.  I also read as many independent sources as I could from Martha to Cook’s Illustrated.  The general consensus is the longer your coffee sits out on your counter the worse it is for it.  McGee, like many other food writers, suggests storing your coffee in the whole bean form.  This seems to be the best way to get the most freshness.  Whole beans work better for storage than ground coffee from a science point of view.  As McGee states, “One reason the whole beans keep as long as they do is that they’ve filled with carbon dioxide, which helps exclude oxygen from the porous interior.  Once the beans have been ground, room-temperature shelf life is only a few days.” 

Cooks Illustrated did a big test on storing ground coffee this month.  They found that ground coffee stored on the counter for two weeks had a bitter flavor.  They found frozen grounds (stored in ziplock bags with the extra air pressed out) worked better, but they worked best when allowed to come back up to room temperature.   

So, what’s the best way to store coffee?  Well, the best way would be to buy whole beans and store them in the freeze in a container with all the air pressed out.  When you are ready to grind the coffee, take it out of the freezer and allow it to come up to room temp. and then grind it and brew.  If you don’t want the hassle of whole beans, use the same technique with ground coffee and you should still be able to brew a decent cup of joe.

My first rule of thumb on spices is if you can’t remember the last time you used it, then you may want to start with a new bottle.  The truth about dried spices and herbs is they can be kept in a cool dark place for 6 months or so.  If the bottles in your spice cabinet have dust, then you probably haven’t used it in 6 months.  One of the best ways to tell if your spices or herbs are getting old is by looking at the color of them.  Spices and dried herbs change color with age, your once bright red paprika now may be brownish.  Dried herbs will no longer have a green color, but will appear grayish.  The changing color of your spices indicates they are no longer as potent as they once were. 

I suggest keeping the spices and dried herbs on hand that you use most frequently and buying the others in the smallest quantities possible.  I always have the cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, Italian Seasoning, Herbs de Provence, red pepper flakes, chili powder, cumin, etc. on hand. I do not buy dried herbs as much because I find the fresh ones so readily available and relatively inexpensive.  If you do spring cleaning each year, it may be a good time to get rid of those old bottles of stuff you last used in 1988.(Oh, come on you know we’ve all have a bottle of something or other that we’ve had for the last 20 years…)

This months issue of Cook’s Illustrated has a couple of really great pieces, one on balsamic vinegar from the grocery store and one on Chef’s knives.  One of knives that was highly recommended was a very inexpensive knife.  This is really great for people just starting out buying kitchen equipment.  I have to say I was a little disappointed that the testers did not review my knife, I would guess they didn’t test it because it is actually a Santoku, not a Chef’s knife.  I have to tell you I really love it.  The knife that won for best value was the Victorinox Fibrox 8-inch Chef’s Knife.  It retails for less than $30.00.  Check out this link over at amazon.com to get more details.

The other really interesting piece they did this month was testing out lower priced balsamic vinegars.  There was one supermarket find that worked in well in all uses.  Some of the other types they tested only worked well in vinaigrettes or plain out of the bottle, but not used in everything.  The testers like Lucini Gran Riserva Balsamico the best.  The cost per bottle is $15.00 for 8.5 ounces.  You can pick up a bottle of this vinegar probably in your local grocery store or online at worldpantry.com.

I have to say I am really liking Cook’s Illustrated and I really enjoy sharing what I find with you from all the magazines I read each month.

Yesterday, I posted part two of the great mushroom debate.  The question posed was does salting effect the time it takes a mushroom to brown?  I couldn’t find much research on this, so I went straight to the source for the science behind cooking Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking.  Believe me I was surprised when he responded back this morning to my email.  McGee seems to confirm my findings from yesterday, that salting mushrooms may actually cause the mushrooms to take less time to brown.  I found 5 minutes vs. 7 minutes in pan testing.  Here’s his email response for those of you who are interested.

“Dear Nicky,
Thanks very much for your message and kind words! About mushrooms: of course they contain a ton of water,  and unless you heat them very quickly in a very hot pan–as in stir-frying–they will give up that water and won’t really brown properly until it boils off. So I would think that salting actually speeds this process up by helping to pull the water out. But this is probably a minor effect compared to the heating itself. Salt can only affect the very outer layer of cells, while heat acts throughout the tissue.
Best wishes,
Harold”

A while back I did a piece on the great mushroom experiment, I promised to revisit the story and so here is the follow-up.  In the original piece I took two mushrooms of relatively the same size and cooked them in the same pan, one with salt and one without salt.  In the first piece there was minimal difference between the mushrooms.  Today I sat up a similar experiment, but decided to do whole pans of mushrooms to see if more mushrooms affected the results.  The original question posed was does salting mushrooms cause them to take longer to brown?  In the first test the finding was no and I have to say the findings stayed the same in this round.  Here’s the setup - non-stick pan, medium-high heat, pan full of mushrooms.  The mushrooms were allowed to cook until they were brown.  Here are the photo results.

Unsalted mushrooms in pan.

Unsalted mushrooms browning. (7 mins.)

Salted mushrooms in pan.

Browning salted mushrooms. (5 mins.)

The interesting finding here was the salted mushrooms took only 5 minutes to brown.  For those of you thinking well if they were cooked second then the pan was hot, not so fast, I preheated the pan for the first set of mushrooms to counter this point.  I tried to find research on this topic, couldn’t find anything really.  I looked at McGee’s On Food and Cooking, but there is not mention of salting mushrooms and it’s effects on cook times.  I did find out a couple of interesting facts on mushrooms though.  Mushrooms are 80-90% water.  Since mushrooms are not plants they have no chlorophyll and can not get energy from the sun.  They must life off of other living things.  The part of the mushroom that we eat is called the fruiting body.  This part lives above ground and releases the spores that allow the mushrooms to reproduce. Because the fruiting body is so important to the mushrooms survival some mushrooms are poisonous.

Quick breads include all those yummy morning treats you think of coffee cake, muffins, breads, biscuits and popovers.  I have to admit I love quick breads.  I love baking them and I love eating them.  I bake batches of them at a time.  I think they are great because they freeze easily, can be made in batches, and are easy to prepare. 

So what makes a quick bread quick?  The reason these treats are classified in the quick category is they require no kneading or rising time.  The leavening comes from baking soda and/or baking powder.  The baking powder and soda begin working when the wet ingredients are added to the batter.  Double action powders get another shot of rising from the heat reacting with the chemical leaveners.  (For interesting discussions on this topic and many other food science topics I suggest reading Harold Mcgee’s On Food and Cooking.)

Next time you are having brunch consider making a couple of quick breads and freezing them to save yourself time on that morning. 

Garlic is one of the most used ingredients in many people’s kitchens.  I find that I often use garlic, but living in the Northeast I d have trouble finding “good-looking” garlic sometimes.  The garlic I find certain times of year is rubbery and is not tightly packed.  In the interest of finding good garlic I went on a little research mission to find out more about garlic.  So what should you look for and how should you store your garlic?

When looking for garlic you should find firm heads without soft spots.  If your garlic has soft spots then it has started to spoil on you.  Another thing to look at is the color and texture of the outer skin.  The garlic should not have spots and should have a really white skin.(Unless you are using a purple variety or something) 

So how should you store garlic?  According to Martha Stewart Living the best way to store garlic is, “in a mesh bag in a dark cabinet or in a decorative pottery garlic keeper.”  Do not store your garlic in the fridge, the moisture will contribute to quicker spoilage.  Peeled cloves of garlic can be stored in the freezer in an airtight container.  Keep in mind when you thaw the garlic it will not be as firm as fresh garlic and not as strong in flavor. 

Try some really garlicky recipes like:

Sara Moulton’s - Garlic Roasted Potato Skins

Rachael Ray’s - Roasted Garlic, Feta, and Walnut Dip

Emeri Lagasse’s - Garlic-Roasted Asparagus